Delayed Reaction
by Jojo6
Summary: The mission after Paradise Lost. S/J. Tiny, itty-bitty spoilers for PL - just the basics.


Title: Delayed Reaction

Author: Jojo

E-mail: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk

Rating: PG

Summary: The mission after Paradise Lost. 

Season: 6. Post Paradise Lost, pre-Metamorphasis

Spoilers: Very, very small ones for Paradise Lost.

Disclaimer: Not mine! No money made by me! 

A/N: Thanks to Emry, Kat, Mel and Sandy. 

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By the time Jack got back, he was furious, he was wet, and he was cold. This combination of attributes had gone a long way in speeding up his walk from the center of town - where he'd been gawked at, prodded and then shouted at - back to their charming temporary abode, but it hadn't managed to evaporate the water that had saturated his clothes. 

His first mission after a month-long absence and he was already missing 'paradise'. 

So. Very. Ironic. 

The door closed behind him loudly and he heard the bolt slide into its place. No doubt his two 'escorts' - a couple of the biggest men he had ever seen in his entire life, complete with extremely pointy knives - had taken their positions on either side of the entrance, not caring about the rain. They didn't look like the type to notice a little thing like rain. 

Jonas looked up from where he was all but sitting in the fire, his hands and bare feet protruding in front of him in an effort to warm up his fingers and toes. "Did you.... Ah." Wisely, Jonas shut his mouth as he correctly interpreted O'Neill's expression to mean he had not been successful. Hurriedly, he turned his face back to the fire, wincing slightly. 

"No, Jonas," Jack said, pretending Jonas had carried on with his question, "the locals aren't being co-operative. They will not let us go home. They will not give us back our weapons and packs and, no, they won't give us any food either." He began stripping off his other layers of clothing, draping the sopping garments over one of the nails tacked into the timber frames of the wall and muttering inventive curse words aimed at their 'hosts.' 

When he was down to his black T-shirt and pants, Jack sighed. He closed his eyes and pressed his chilly fingertips against his hot and scratchy eyelids and tried to calm down. There was no use yelling at his team because the natives had supremely pissed him off. "Teal'c, did you guys have any luck?" 

"The guards were most unwilling to listen to our advice," Teal'c said, opening his eyes and viewing his companion calmly. "I do not believe they are going to see things our way, O'Neill. It would be best if we waited through the night and meet with their leader once he returns." 

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." It had been, after all, what the leader's son - Rodgery-thingummy - had been parroting on and on about. He couldn't let them go until his father came and told him to. God, the guy had been infuriating. Reminded Jack of several politicians he knew. 

His stomach rumbled, which brought him back to more immediate problems. "Jonas, do you still have that candy bar?" 

"No. Sam took it away from me about an hour ago and hid it." Jonas smiled wryly - Jack guessed this had been some kind of a joke that he'd missed whilst he'd been involved in 'diplomatic' conversation with the locals. "Teal'c won't tell me where it is." 

Teal'c smiled back at Jonas and closed his eyes, returning once more to the first stages of his meditation. 

"Good one, Carter." Moving away from the wall, Jack looked beyond the outcrop of wall that would have served to divide the room in two had not half of it already been destroyed. The hay-filled sleeping area, which Carter and Teal'c had strewn with as many layers of their clothes that they could manage, was empty. He had expected to see her curled up, deep in thought, perhaps even planning their escape. "Where is Carter?" 

It was then that Jack noticed. 

From the moment the rain had started - which timed with their arrival in the out-of-the-way shed that the townspeople considered suitable accommodation for their weird and obviously dangerous guests - the roof had leaked. In about fifty different places. Climbing on top of Teal'c, Carter had been able to plug the majority of the holes with small stones, hay and dirt, except for one particular hole which was, typically, the loudest and wettest. The one that bounced off of a stone ledge high up on the highest wall with a loud 'bling' before starting a slightly more sedate drip down into the sparse hay of their 'sleeping area.' 

And Carter - being Carter - had spent the first hour of their time in the shed fixating on that drip. 

To say it was driving her nuts would have been an understatement. 

"Tell me you didn't let her go up there," Jack barked, aiming the majority of this statement at Teal'c, whom he held more culpable than Jonas. After all, Jonas couldn't be expected to talk sense into Carter. They were friends but, let's face it, she could walk all over him if she wanted. The same couldn't be said for Teal'c, though, sometimes, Jack had his doubts. 

"It would have been impossible to stop her, O'Neill," Teal'c said, with a hint of a sigh. "One of the guards accompanied her." 

"How long has she been gone?" 

"Fifteen minutes and forty-three seconds." 

Jack rolled his eyes and started pulling on his relatively dry socks. This time his mutterings were aimed at someone else entirely. God, she was a real pain in the ass. He didn't know why he put up with her sometimes. 

With his feet strapped back into his boots, his wet cap back on his head, Jack rapped on the door. 

"What is it?" 

"I want to get up on the roof with my teammate." 

"Why?" 

"Because... because I want to yell at her for disobeying orders." 

Hell, if he couldn't tell the truth to complete strangers, to whom _could_ he tell the truth? 

There was a long pause. Jack pictured the two men conversing on the possibilities of their two unarmed prisoners planning an uprising on the roof of the shed, with at least six guards dotted around the building and umpteen more posted around the Stargate.

Impatiently, he tapped his fingers on the wall to his left, coming up with punch lines to hit his 2IC with - 

__

'Does it say Colonel anywhere on my uniform?' 

No, no. He used that one _way_ too much. 

__

'You know, there are days, Carter, when I forget which of us is the one in charge... today isn't one of them."

Heh. Good one. But it didn't have the punch he quite wanted.

Looking down at the ground, he noticed that the floor was getting damp. Shit. He was gonna get so wet out there. 

Hurriedly, he plucked his shirt off of the wall and pulled it on. It would, at least, protect his comparatively dry T-shirt from the sheeting rain. 

__

'I cannot believe you disobeyed my orders... again!' 

That wouldn't work either. She never disobeyed orders. And he hadn't exactly ordered her not to climb up on the roof and mend the leak - he had implied that if she did he would hang her from the railings upside down but he hadn't ordered her. 

The door finally opened, slowly, with one man behind the door and the other peering carefully through the crack. Since Teal'c had positioned himself where he could be easily seen and Jonas hadn't moved one inch from the fire since they'd arrived, it was pretty obvious no one was planning a breakout. 

The door opened completely and the man on the right grabbed Jack by the lapel, yanking him forward into the sheeting rain. Resigned - the guy was at least six inches taller and about a million pounds heavier - Jack allowed himself to be propelled around the building to where another enormous guard was standing in front of a crudely wrought ladder. 

He was released. Casually un-crumpling his shirt, he looked at the ladder with extreme distaste. "Let me guess, she went up here?" 

The men looked at him mutely. 

"God, did you come out of the cliché bad guys mold or were you trained...." 

"Get up!" 

Man, he hated when his witty comebacks got interrupted. It really ruined the swing of his conversation. "Okay!" He reached out and put a hand on the slick ladder, gave it a bit of a shake. "Carter?" he yelled up, the rain pelting his face.

He listened for a moment, trying to hear over the noise of water falling. Nothing. 

Sighing deeply, he put a foot on the base of the ladder, bounced tentatively and, judging the ladder to be mostly secure, started to climb up slowly. 

Muttering, 

"... oh she's gonna get it.... really gonna get it..... damn, I thought she was smarter than this..... what the hell was she thinking.... couldn't he have sat on her or something?.... he's bigger than her, dammit.... I don't understand why the whole world is afraid of her... _I'm_ not afraid of her.... not most of the time anyways..." 

His head peeked over the roof. He ignored his relief at the huddled figure he could see perched on the peak of the roof and focussed on getting angry. 

And, since there was a trail of water running down the back of his neck and all the way into his shorts, Jack had a real easy time getting angry. 

"Major!" he yelled into the rain. 

What he could see of her didn't move. He placed his palms on the roof top, recalling that underneath there were several wooden beams that hadn't, at least, appeared rotten. He guessed it would be solid enough to hold some weight - Carter certainly felt so since she was sitting on the damn thing. 

Carefully, glad of the grip on his boots, he started crawling up and forwards very, very slowly. What the hell was she doing? If she'd fixed the roof, why hadn't she come back down yet? 

Oh, she was so gonna get it. 

"Oh, _Carter_," he said loudly, as soon as he figured he was close enough for her to be able to hear him. 

Her head lowered and turned to the right. "Sir. Did the natives help?" 

"What do you think, Carter?" He slid down next to her, wincing as the ridgeline of the roof dug into his butt. "What the hell are you doing, Major?" 

She shrugged. He noticed she hadn't even bothered to wear her cap and the rain was running down her face, her hair plastered to her skull. "I just got so wet there didn't seem to be much point going inside." 

What? "_What?_" 

Carter sniffed and wiped the back of her very wet sleeve across her nose. 

A suspicion rose in Jack's mind. Sure, she was wet, but there was a certain look about her that suggested... "Carter, have you been...." 

"No!" 

"Okay, then," he said hurriedly. 

They both turned to look out across the sodden fields with the moving black blobs of the planet's version of cows. 

Jack looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He was trying to distinguish between rain and tears but wasn't having much luck. She could just have been a little red around the eyes... And it wasn't as if there was any reason for her to be crying. Sure, he'd heard she'd acted a little crazy while he'd been vacationing with Maybourne, but he was back now. 

"If I jumped into a river right now, I would be drier," he joked. 

She didn't smile. 

Disappointed in a way he only was when she didn't laugh at his jokes, Jack frowned at her. "Carter, if I bring you back with pneumonia, the Doc'll castrate me."

She lowered her head, her hands worrying the edge of her shirt but he thought he saw just the flicker of a smile grace her mouth. 

He nudged her with his shoulder. "Hey," he said. He would have liked to say something more meaningful after that, but he and Carter didn't do meaningful. 

Carter sniffed again and lifted her head. She looked at him intently, blinking against the wetness running down her face. She started moving decisively, shifting up so her knees were on either side of the apex of the roof. She wiped her hands on the thighs of her legs. "Turn towards me," she said. 

Not really sure she was doing, but doing as she suggested anyway, Jack shifted carefully around. His brow furrowed in confusion at her hands reached for his face. "Carter, what are you.... " Suddenly, her mouth was where his was. Her mouth. On his. "Mmmpfff!" he announced in surprise. 

Her hands slid to the back of his neck and it was with shock that Jack felt the pressure of her lips part over his own, turning it from a simple kiss to something definitely more. Shock rapidly turned to delight, delight to a tingling sensation low in his belly and then straight on to lust. His hands went to her waist, wrapping around her and pulling her closer - she slid along the rooftop towards him until she was pressed against his side, breasts a tantalizing sensation even though layers of wet clothes. 

God, he never thought this would happen. Never thought. Dreamed. But, his luck being what it was, never thought it would actually happen. 

He tried to focus, tried to record exactly what this, kissing her, felt like. Her lips were soft but she certainly knew how to apply the pressure just right, her teeth nipping at his lip in return for his nipping at hers. Her tongue was tentative, her hands soft on his face, slowly sliding back towards his hair. She tasted like rainwater and... and... chocolate. 

He pulled back abruptly, their mouths parting with a wet pop. "You ate his candy bar!" 

She stared at him, her mouth slightly swollen. "Well... yes. I was hungry. I... I have some left if you want it." Her voice wasn't entirely steady and he could see, even in the fading light, that she was flushed. 

Jack's mouth opened and closed a couple of times. He was still kinda hungry but he really had other things on his mind now. "Well, um, no. Not really. Ah, you know, Carter, would you mind if we kept on.... Mmmpff!" 

He sighed happily against her mouth, even his toes tingled as her fingers plucked off his cap and threaded through his hair. Yeah. Definitely tasted of chocolate. 

THE END


End file.
